Deserving | ✔

Chapter 16

I wake up to the sweet birds chirping by the side of my windowsill. Stephanie would have smiled in her sleep if she had heard it. It was a sweet little linnet's tweet.

My mind gives me a picture of her smile like a freshly painted canvas and I take whatever I can of my memory to imagine my reality. To fill my void with my mental image of her. To love her and have her love me back for one more day. Just one day.

"Happy birthday, my love."

I can almost hear a thank you and can almost see her glowing face. Almost. And I make most of what I get.

I briskly get up from my bed, a smile playing in my lips for a long time in a month. I can feel her today like I haven't in 30 days.

I can feel her smile in the rays of sun accentuating my room. I can feel her lovesome gaze in the dew of the morning coated over the petals of the rose plant by the side of the window. I can feel her hearty laugh in the breeze. I can hear her say, 'I love you' in the still silence.

"I love you more, Steph..." I say into the oblivion of my silent room.

But I know for sure that she is right here, listening to me.

And that's all I want for today.

***
"Oh my Gosh, Bhai! You look so handsome!!"

I smile and say, "You look pretty too, Tri... Love the red color on ya!"

She shakes her head. "Nope, don't switch the topic. You look HOT! I mean, that tux! You know how to make a bowtie, Bhai! Look at that! Gosh, Steph would have drooled over you!"

"Do you want to look at her dress?"

She nods eagerly. I ask her to follow me and enter the walk - in closet.

Beside all the pile of clothes I rejected lay the most beautiful dress she's ever had. I've never seen her wear it. I assumed she was waiting for a perfect occasion to wear it and what better occasion than today?

It was a beautiful strapless black dress that came up to her toes. It looks so similar to a wedding dress and she would've looked so beautiful in it... With her hair up in a neat bun, the climate bringing a pink hue on her cheek, her eyes sparkling in love... I can almost see her in my head.

Trisha sobs a little seeing the dress and I squeeze her shoulder to stop her sobs. "No sobbing, no wallowing... Stephanie is here with us today."

She nods and smiles a little.

"So... where are we going?"

I smile. "To every place my girl loves."

***
I park at her old home's porch and take the key out of my pocket. She showed me her old house weeks after we met and it was the first time I felt truly as an insider in her life.

She had narrated the whole of her life to me that day; her parents, how her life was, how they died... Everything. And I listened. I can still feel the way the hard surface of the kitchen island pressing against my back as we sat down on the kitchen floor, the place where she had often hidden in when she played Hide and Seek with her parents and the place she always sat when her mom was cooking something special just for her. It was also the place where she had sat and cried the most just after their death.

She had told me, "Daddy and I had just painted the whole kitchen that week. I could feel the smell of fresh paint on the walls when I sat here and I couldn't help but wonder: The walls are shining brightly, glittering for all what it's worth. But, for whom? For whom are these walls dolled up when the very creators, the very reasons of life of these bloody little sadists with cruel puns of fate, are no more? They were no more there to smell the fresh paints they painted. Daddy told me he would paint the kitchen pink just for me. I didn't know then that it meant that I would be the only one enjoying it."